Bleeding Heart
by maybesomedaylove
Summary: My take on what Buffy is thinking while she has to kill Angel, among a few other key moments in season 2.


Title: Bleeding Heart

Author: Shauna

Summary: My take on what Buffy is thinking while she has to kill Angel, amoung a few other key moments in season 2.

Disclaimer: I don't own Buffy or BA. If I did, they would be together right now... Angel human and him and Buffy together having lots of sex. ;)

Note: I wrote this quite a while ago -- and I realized that I forgot to post it on here. So I figured it's better late than never. This is very very dark/ansty. And pretty much was on the verge of tears the whole time I was writing it, especially the last part. I guess it's something I always wanted to write and well, I'm very happy how it turned out. Anyway, I love feedback. Any kind -- is _very_ encouraging to writers --- but please no flames. :(

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...With every moment they spent together, it was like everything in her truly insane world, was right. It was content...and it was complete. She was actually..for the lack of a better word...happy for once in her life. And she couldn't imagine life without him. Without that face looking down at her every day, making her feel like she was the most beautiful girl in the world; the most special girl. That was the best way she could describe it. Simple but true. He was the place she could call home. And who she trusted her whole heart, body and soul to. Maybe it was that little piece of untouched innocence inside of her at the time, but she was convinced that she was made for him..and he had been made for her. And that even though their souls were hundreds of years apart, it was like fate that theirs would somehow, someway, find each others. They were each other's purpose. Destiny.

_"I have something for you. For your birthday. I... I was gonna give it to you earlier, but..."_

_"It's beautiful."_

_"My people -- before I was changed -- they exchanged this as a sign of devotion. It's a claddagh ring. The hands represent friendship, the crown represents loyalty... and the heart... Well, you know... Wear it with the heart pointing towards you. It means you belong to somebody. Like this. Put it on."_

_"I love you. I try not to, but I can't stop._

_"Me, me, too. I can't either."_

And that night. That cold and rainy night that felt like it was her and Angel against the world... that nothing existed but them, and their love and need for each other. That was the very night that destroyed her dreams, and crushed her very soul...her seventeenth birthday. She could have never of predicted what would have happened after she gave herself fully to Angel that night. How could she have? The man she loved more than anything in her life was gone in what seemed like an instant. And it was because of her. The whole time Angel was gone and the monster that wore his face, that got much pleasure out of terrorizing her and her friends, she almost felt like she deserved it...to be punished. For the longest time she believed...she had killed him. That she had killed the only man she had ever loved. And she couldn't live with that. The fact that she was the only person who brought Angel to true happiness, warmed and touched her heart and way down to the edges of her soul like nothing else could in that time of darkness. But it brought her little but fleeting comfort. For she, the very person who could make him perfectly happy, could rip it all away at the same time. She could never forgive herself for that. And in a way, still never fully did.

After Angelus murdered Ms. Calendar, she knew what she had to do. It was the moment of clarity. She had known it long before that. But in heart she didn't want to know the truth. It was a constant and daily struggle deep inside of her. Because if Angelus was kept alive, there was always that dangling hope that maybe, just one day, her Angel would return to her. But who had she been kidding? Only herself. After Giles looked down at Ms. Calendar's grave and the coldness and emptiness that crept into the air between the two of them... ...After she had seen the very grief buried in her watcher's eyes like she had never seen before, she knew her Angel was gone. She had been selfish. People were dying. The truth cut through her like a flesh wound, eating slowly through her insides. There was nothing she could do. I-It was what had to be done. There was no going back. In that moment, there was no second guessing, no hesitation, no questioning. That moment when she realized she would kill Angelus (and the possibility of Angel ever coming back to her) was the hardest moment in her life.

_"I'm sorry. I'm sorry I couldn't kill him for you... for her... when I had the chance. I wasn't ready. But I think I finally am. I can't hold on to the past anymore. Angel is gone. Nothing's ever gonna bring him back."_

Or so she thought.

After months of pure pain and torment, again all odds he had been returned to her. Maybe everything doesn't just get stripped away, Buffy remembered thinking to herself, while Angel noticed she was hurt and grabbed onto her for dear life. Then not moments later, she opened her eyes, and saw Acathla. Her heart cracked, shattering into a milion pieces inside her body, like tiny pieices of glass stabbing and cutting deep through her insides.

That's what your heart bleeding..._must feel like._

She looked at those chocolate brown eyes one more time. She could taste her tears. If she could, she would be with him for forever and a day.

If she could , she would live in that magical, innocent moment, the one with her and Angel on the ice-rink, for an eternity.

_"You should'nt have to touch me when I'm like this"._

_"Oh. I didn't even notice"._

Her bleeding heart tugged at her chest, as the vision of her dropping the sword, and being sucked into the vast blackness of hell with Angel, flashed into her mind, almost like it had become reality.

It would be so easy. She would be with him. _It didn't matter where._

Then she saw her Mother's face. Her friends.

The whole world.

It would be so easy...

She felt herself loosen the grip on the sword.

_But _-- she had to save the world.

She then felt her hand grow tighter around the sword.

His eyes... she would never see again.

HIs lips... never taste.

His body..never hold.

All she ever wanted was him.

_"Angel when I look into the future, all I see is you. All I want is you."_

It would be so easy, she whispered to her bleeding heart once more.

But she knew...who she was.

They always say ...saying goodbye is always the hardest part.

She had already lost him once on that rainy night that felt like a distant dream.

That was her nightmare now.

She never got to say goodbye _then_.

At least now...she could hold him one more time...

It would be over in seconds she told herself.

She gently leaned in, and kissed him, savoring every last moment she could of the feel of his soft lips on hers.

She could feel her heart continue to bleed in her chest.

She could feel it burning.

This was _hell._

And for one last time, she envisioned herself freeing the sword, and giving in to her bleeding heart.

It would be so easy. _So very easy._

Her and Angel ...forever and a day. _It didn't matter where._

There was really only one choice she could make.

The _only_ choice.

"_I love you."_

"_I love you."_

"_Close your eyes."_

_ +  
_

She pictured herself on the beach. The sun setting...wind blowing through her hair.

_Maybe one day... in her dreams he would meet her there._


End file.
